Merry Christmas with avatars, VR, Augmented Reality tools, and a digital “ho, ho, ho”
Virtual reality brings the joy and the magic of Christmas to the metaverse world, the new trend that has recently become ‘the talk of the town’.
Although metaverse is not new, Facebook’s decision to change its name to Meta has sparked a great deal of debate about the future of the digital world, with large companies already investing millions in metaverse technology.
Christmas could not be absent from this new digital reality.
LuluLand with the support of the Game Maker Fund developed the Christmas Eve Miracle, a social hub in the Sandbox where users could celebrate Christmas in a virtual environment and socialize with the use of avatars.
In the metaverse Christmas, users can participate in several fun activities such as finding the Santa Claus who is hiding in the meta-land and rewarding the first player to find him. They can also host parties and Christmas events, visit, and take part in activities in the many festive buildings, explore the nearby mountain or even ride the Christmas Train. And all this without leaving their homes, since the whole experience remains in an inclusive virtual environment, The Sandbox’s metaverse.
“Every year (or from time to time) we adjust the story of the characters or the decoration of the objects to keep the land fresh, we even could update the leader-board or milestone after holding some important event, making this land alive! We are expecting the social hub to have more functions like multiplayer synchronization, voice chat (then can hold online live concerts), some physical mechanism, or a mission system” said LuluLand describing the new Christmas project.
With more and more companies offering metaverse tools, and as users become more familiar with this technology, metaverse Christmas will likely become the next big thing in the coming years.
VR tour in Santa’s village
Although metaverse empowers users with innovative digital tools and provides an integration between virtual and physical spaces, interacting with the Christmas spirit in VR is nothing new.
The virtual tour of the Santa Claus Village is the most typical example. For those who can’t visit Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi in Lapland, there is an option for a VR tour through Santa’s official website. Users can take a tour around the village digitally, explore it and learn all about the area and its infrastructure
Also, several other platforms allow users to navigate a digital Santa Claus Village, using VR and Augmented Reality tools, either for free or for a fee.
Over the past few years, Google maps Santa Claus’ trek from the North Pole to rooftops around the globe on Christmas Eve via Google Maps and Google Earth. Santa is represented via 3D modeling technology and users can track him at any time during his trip. The giant technology company has also launched Google Santa Tracker where there is a countdown for Christmas, and users can explore Santa’s village and play various online games.
